


something that can't be touched

by gentleau (iwanna_seeyou_undoit)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, and also some, i thought of about two lines of conversation and wrote a few hundred words of sex about it, kinda... for good measure, um... what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwanna_seeyou_undoit/pseuds/gentleau
Summary: As much as the media likes to present the two of them as naturally created enemies, Alex gets on well with Pierre.He sends him photos of his pets, sometimes. Pierre often doesn’t respond, but the sporadic heart emojis encourage Alex to keep doing it.
Relationships: Alexander Albon/Pierre Gasly
Comments: 17
Kudos: 71





	something that can't be touched

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from [learn to fly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFfNvSnFcAc), which, yes, i chose because it's on Pierre's playlist

As much as the media likes to present the two of them as naturally created enemies, Alex gets on well with Pierre. 

He’d known him when Pierre was at Red Bull and he was still in Toro Rosso. They’d gravitate toward each other at Christian’s barbeques, end up sitting at the corner of a table picking over a platter of little cocktail olives and cheese. 

There’s barely a month between them, in age. Pierre’s happy birthday text to him been half perfunctory ( **happy birthday mate!** ), half gloating ( **don’t forget i am still older than you!** )

Alex knows Pierre had been disappointed about the Red Bull situation, but they’re both professionals. Alex didn’t choose to have Pierre ejected from his seat. He certainly wasn’t angling to get the Red Bull drive for himself. The phone call from Dr. Marko had been as much of a surprise to Alex as it was for Pierre. 

If anything, the whole rigamarole of swapping cars, switching branding, gaining and losing a teammate at the same time had only brought them closer together.

Before 2019, they were friendly associates. Now, Alex would call them friends if he was pressed to explain their relationship. 

He sends Pierre photos of his pets, sometimes. Pierre often doesn’t respond, but the sporadic heart emojis encourage Alex to keep doing it. 

Alex calls Pierre after his win in Monza. He leaves enough time for Pierre to speak to the important people in his life, and their conversation is brief, but it’s nice to hear the joy in Pierre’s voice - to know and to feel how much it means to him. He’s glad he didn’t just congratulate him in a few lines on Instagram. 

When Alex finishes third in Mugello, Pierre phones him at around the same time of night. 

Alex has just got off a video call with George and Lando, and he’s full from his fancy solo dinner. He’s sitting in his hotel room, contemplating running himself a bath or just going straight to sleep. 

“Italy is good for us!” is one of the first things Pierre says, when Alex answers. “Red Bull should take us here more often, no?” 

Alex laughs down the line. He agrees, says something about the exceptional standard of hotel rooms they’ve gotten in Italy, too. They chat for a while, and then Alex decides he does want a bath afterall, and for all Pierre insists that he doesn’t mind having to raise his voice over the sound of running water, Alex hangs up before he starts. 

..

It happens after the race at Sochi. 

Pierre finishes ninth, one place above Alex. They raced each other for what felt like the whole race. 

Alex knows the commentators and the pundits and the internet are going to have a field-day pulling his performance apart and holding it up to Pierre’s. 

He tries not to let it get to him. 

“You can keep me company until dinner if you like?” Pierre phrases it in such a way that it sounds like Alex would be doing Pierre a favour. Even though he  _ knows  _ Pierre has noticed the expression on his face. ‘Like a forlorn lost lamb,’ George would say.

And Alex doesn’t want to spend an evening moping all alone in his room, so he agrees. He trails Pierre back to his hotel room because Alpha Tauri takes a less paranoid approach to watching who goes in and out of their drivers’ rooms. Plus, there’s less media hanging around the hotel. 

Dr. Marko texts him just as they’re getting in the elevator. Alex tries to keep his wince as subtle as possible, but Pierre has the eyes of a bloody hawk, so of course he doesn’t miss it. 

“He will never be happy. It’s not your fault.” He nudges Alex gently. “I heard you’re staying off social media? Good choice.”

It’s deeply uncomfortable to take comfort like this. Alex would prefer to be a person capable of pasting on a brave face and soldiering through. He wishes his shoulders were wider than they are. He’d thought, given the givens of his life, that he’d be able to stomach more of the criticism. 

He’s trying. He’s trying really hard to ignore it, to tell himself it’s a business, it’s nothing personal. But when he’s got texts like this one from Helmut Marko sitting at the top of his inbox… Well. 

The elevator opens and Pierre lets Alex go in front of him. “Really, mate.” Alex feels the heat of Pierre’s palm where he’s holding it  _ just  _ above Alex’s waist. He’s being ushered, and he doesn’t hate it. It feels comforting. To be led and not dragged, for once. “It’s not you.”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” 

Pierre pauses, one hand still poised above Alex’s lower back, the other digging in his jeans for his room key. “Well, yes. It’s me, too.” 

And that’s right. Pierre has lived something similar, hasn’t he? 

“You’re right. You’re right. I need to buck up,” he laughs. “ _ You’re not special’ _ , right?”

Pierre boggles at him, shutting the door behind them. The interior of Pierre’s hotel room is dark - only the red light from the TV flashing at them. “No! That’s not what I mean!” Alex had been joking, kind of, but Pierre seems genuinely upset. “I am sorry if I sounded like that. I say the wrong things, sometimes, in English.”

“No, it’s okay! You’re fine! Your English is great. Better than my French.”

Pierre laughs. “Your French is shit, mate.” His hand touches Alex’s back, finally. 

Alex’s breath catches high in his throat. 

There’s a tension between them. 

Alex feels like he creates it himself, most of the time. Overthinks, gets caught up in his head, and cooks up a fog of tension that doesn’t need to be there.

He’s cataloguing the way his feet feel in his trainers and trying to work out if the warmth of Pierre’s room is comforting or stifling, when he feels hands on his hips. Pierre’s hands. 

He moves slowly, tugging Alex forward and forward until Alex dips his neck to tuck his head into the crook of Pierre’s shoulder - the curve of his head bracketed by Pierre’s neck, his nose lying against the soft wool of his jumper. 

They’re hugging. 

Alex can count on one hand the amount of times he’s been hugged in the last fortnight. 

They stand there until they start swaying under their own immobility. 

He pulls back and Pierre is staring at him. And then Pierre touches his chin. “Can I?” Alex nods. And then they’re kissing. 

They stand there until Alex stumbles a bit from contorting himself down to Pierre’s level. They laugh and Pierre apologises for the state of his bed. 

“I woke up too late to make it.” 

Alex shrugs. He doesn’t care. A rumpled bed is more comfortable anyway. More homely. 

They sit on the bed and kiss some more. 

Pierre’s phone buzzes and he pulls away. It’s Pyry, reminding him of his flight details the next day. He rearranged himself on the bed. 

“Are you comfortable?” He asks. 

Alex nods. “Mhm.” 

“Do you want to watch something?” Pierre turns the TV on, flicks through to some nature documentary. 

It’s not how Alex imagined spending his night but it’s nice. After a while he shifts down the bed. Pierre slips his fingers into Alex’s hair. Alex moves to rest his head over Pierre’s thighs. 

It should be awkward to feel Pierre getting hard through his jeans but it’s not. Alex stretches up to kiss his chin and falls back against his thighs. Pierre’s breath leaves him in a sweet little sigh. 

It makes Alex brave. 

“I want to suck you.” Alex hears himself but can’t believe it was him who spoke until Pierre’s thigh tenses under his chin. 

“Yes,” Pierre answers, voice high and tight in his throat already. “Please, if you want to.”

Alex nods. He sits up to let Pierre wriggle out of his briefs and tightens his fingers around Pierre’s calves as Pierre rolls a condom over himself. He skates his fingers over the finer hairs on Pierre’s thighs. He kisses the jut of one knee. 

“I don’t… Tell me if it’s not good for you.” Alex huffs out a little breath in the crease of Pierre’s hip and thigh and watches the way his shivers away from the cold. He presses a kiss there, an apology. 

Pierre’s hand is gentle in Alex’s hair. His fingers stroke the untouched skin behind his ears and Alex closes his eyes. He thinks Pierre must notice because his touch becomes slightly more purposeful, designed, not to move Alex, but to get his attention. 

“It is already good, Alex.” Pierre says. His eyes are so clear, focused entirely on Alex lying between his legs on an unmade hotel bed. “We can stop if you want to.”

Immediately, Alex shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes. I- I do want to do this.” He presses his lips together before he can stammer on any longer. He can’t believe he’s here. 

Pierre is beautiful. He always is, the bastard, but he’s beautiful. His tan makes him look as if he’s glowing against the white sheets. There’s a little pouch of tummy over his abs, a little breath of softness against the harsh world they’ve been thrown into. Sitting like this, sprawled half-upright against the pillows with his legs splayed out around Alex’s shoulders, Pierre looks  _ tiny _ . 

Compared to Alex, he kind of is. He’s not the shortest in the paddock, nor the stockiest, but his proportions are delicate, soft, gentle. He seems fragile, almost. 

And then Alex takes in the muscles of the thighs under his palms, the stretch of his calves, the strength in the arm that’s propping him up off the bed, and he knows he’s not. He is in bed with a beautifully strong man. 

It makes his stomach clench and his mouth fill with saliva. He thinks about the way Pierre had held him, when they’d arrived at the hotel. He thinks of how surrounded he’d felt. He wants to feel that again. 

He knees up the bed to clutch Pierre’s face between his hands and press a long, hot kiss to his mouth. Pierre smiles into the kiss, relaxes back against the pillows and then surges forward, his own hands coming up to frame Alex’s head. 

When Alex feels Pierre’s hips rise off the bed, he manoeuvres himself back down. 

Pierre’s dick is… Alex feels ridiculous describing a penis as pretty, but it is. It matches the rest of him. He’s not blond, down there, either, which Alex likes. It’s not that he doesn’t like Pierre’s hair, he just thinks it suited him better when it was darker. And it’s not like he’s got some body hair fetish, it’s just… it’s nice. Seeing Pierre as he naturally is. Unblemished. Unchanged. 

It’s nice to know that even among the chaos of their work, there are some things that remain still and isolated. 

He doesn’t waste time getting his mouth around Pierre.

Alex thrills at the moan that Pierre gives out. He sounds shocked, almost like he hadn’t expected to make a noise. It’s nice. Flattering. To startle that out of him. 

Alex has sucked dick before, once or twice. Not often enough that he thinks he’s built up any particular talent for it. He still has to wrap his hand around the base of Pierre’s dick to cover what he can’t fit in his mouth. But Pierre keeps making noises. 

His thighs tense beside Alex’s ears and his ankles touch his back every so often as Pierre squirms and shifts against the pressure of Alex’s mouth. His hand never leaves Alex’s hair, but it also never starts pressing down. He is never greedy, never  _ taking  _ anything from Alex. 

His response alone is enough to get Alex rock hard in his jeans. He presses his dick against the mattress and just hopes he doesn’t come before Pierre. 

How embarrassing would that be. 

Pierre, when he comes, switches to French. It’s like his brain forgets to speak English. 

Alex finds it hopelessly endearing. 

He pulls off, wiping spit from the corners of his mouth. He lets Pierre dispose of the condom on the floor next to the bed before he flops onto the mattress next to his shoulder. He wants to kiss him but he’s just had his dick in his mouth and he’s not sure how Pierre would react to that. 

He kisses the side of his ribs instead. 

Pierre tucks a hand under Alex’s armpit. “Come here.”

Alex complies and is pulled in for a soft kiss. Pierre rubs their noses together. 

“Can I do you, now?” He asks, sounding almost shy. 

Alex nods against his face. “Yeah, yes. Please. How do you want me?”

Pierre shrugs. Smiles. “However you want to be. Naked, preferably.”

Getting out of skinny jeans while painfully aroused, lying down in a bed, and trying not to send an elbow into Pierre’s stomach is an incredibly difficult and incredibly ungraceful process. Alex gets naked, eventually, and Pierre moves over him, presses him down into the mattress in a mirror image of their position before. 

He passes Alex a condom, and presses gentle sucking bites to the tops of his calves while he gets it on. 

“Good?” Pierre asks, once Alex’s hands settle over his shoulders. 

“Good,” Alex agrees. 

And yes. It really is. Pierre’s mouth is wet and hot and he’s just as gentle and dedicated and focused when he’s giving a blow job as he is when he’s doing anything else. 

..

“So,” Alex says conversationally, once he is able to speak. “That happened, huh?” 

Pierre tilts his head toward Alex. The slightest motion, barely any effort behind it at all. “Are you…” he trails off. Alex knows he’ll move if he needs him to. 

“I’m good. It was… good, I think. Are you?” 

Pierre’s laugh in the close quarters of the bed is an experience Alex will never be able to replicate. “Only ‘you think’? We might need to try again if you’re not sure!” He stretches closer, to kiss Alex’s shoulder. Barely there before he’s pulling back to let the air touch the damp spot his lips left behind. 

Alex laughs, too. Because what else can he do? They’ve just had sex, or near enough to it. Alex would call it sex. George would probably beg to differ, say something crass and ridiculous about dicks and holes and which ones counted. 

He’s just had sex with Pierre. And it was nice. Maybe too nice. He doesn’t know how he’s going to face Pierre in the paddock, in meetings, in interviews… Hell, even just in this hotel room once the spell lingering over the bed has disappeared and they have to go through the rigmarole of getting dressed in front of each other. 

Pierre is sweet. Alex had known that before the sex but now it’s a solid fact in his mind. Like the way Pierre kisses with a bit of teeth and a lot of tongue. Like the way his thighs are strong and the hair on them is soft, and when Alex stroked them against the grain Pierre lost his mind.

How is he supposed to recover from knowing all those things?


End file.
